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Development and Maintaintence of Linux
There is a community named GNU GPL(General Public Licence) which develops and powers the Linux.
Anyone under GNU GPL can develop Linux.
Linux is build under a huge community which has more than 10000 developers and more that 1000 companies supporting it.
Linux was just a hobby project of Linus Torvalds but in the last 2 decades with the combined efforts of these developers Linux has been build having more than 20 million lines of code base ruling all over the world.
A new Linux Kernel comes out every 2-3 months which is made possible by the following process
When an developer submits the code for Linux, developers make changes to individual code units called Patches.
A patch describes the lines of code that needs to be changed, added or removed from the source code.
Each patch can be done to perform any of the following
- Add a new feature
- Fix a problem
- Improve performance
- Provide support for a new device, etc
After creating the patches, developers post their code to the authorised mail threads where other developers can give their feedback.
When the patch is selected for a release then it is accepted by a Senior Linux Kernel Developer/Maintainer who does even more extensive evaluation and then if they feel it’s good to go then send that patch to Linus Torvalds who has the authority to select what is going to be accepted in the next release.